Tuesday, January 15, 2013

SAYING GOODBYE TO COMICS BUYER’S GUIDE

﻿Comics Buyer’s Guide, the world’s longest running magazine aboutcomics, had an impressive run of 1699 issues in 42 years. It was,for a long time, the comics industry’s newspaper of record and, oneway or another, it was part of my life for most of its existence.

The news of CBG’s demise hit me harder than I could have imagined.I had been expecting this news for years - always wondered if thenext “Tony’s Tips” column would be my last - but I never expected CBG and yours truly wouldn’t get that last chance to say goodbye toour readers and the publication. That the plug was pulled just oneissue short of issue #1700 astonished me. It would have been niceto have had a grand send-off.

F&W’s cold and clinical press release was also a factor in how hardI took the news. I’ve been told this sort of thing is standard in“the business world” and I don’t doubt it. But “standard” doesn’tmean right and it surely wasn’t right that F&W didn’t acknowledgeCBG’s history and importance to the comics industry.

I was also concerned for CBG editors Brent Frankenhoff and MaggieThompson, though, as Maggie was supposed to be retired, more so forBrent. However, Brent tells me the company treated him well afterhis two decades of service there...and Maggie tells me the peopleat Krause Publications have always been the most wonderful folks towork with. It seems a little nuts for me to be angry on behalf offriends who aren’t themselves angry, but whoever said I was a modelof sanity?

My depression last week was not solely CBG-based. There was somesad news on my side of the family and a developing situation withthe health of one of my in-laws. The news that DC was victorious inits battle to deny Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel’s heirs theirrightful due also hit me hard in a way that can only be understoodby someone who’s also been screwed over by the company.

Top all of the above with the realization that, for the first timein my four decades in comics that I can remember, I have no payinggig on my desk. If nothing else, I always had my next column forCBG to write. If only by a matter of degrees, this is sort of newterritory for me. Yeah, I had a bad week.

That said, enough with the sadness already. Let’s look at all thegood things CBG accomplished and how satisfying my association withthe publication has been for me.

CBG boosted the careers of so many talented comics creators in its42-year run. It informed comics fans and professionals alike in aknowledgeable and friendly manner. Week in and week out...and thenmonth in and month out...comics readers learned of new comics andgraphic novels and more. CBG celebrated the past and the presentof the comics art form and industry, both in its pages and with theinformation it often provided to comics professionals, comics-shopowners, journalists, educators, publishers in and outside the fieldand many others. It was not only the industry’s paper of record,it was also its outreach to the world outside comicdom. Everyonewho participated in CBG and that outreach can be proud of what CBGaccomplished in its 1699 issues.

There was a long gap between my initial contributions to the then-titled The Buyer’s Guide for Comics Fandom and the renamed ComicsBuyer’s Guide. The first thing I wrote for editors Don and MaggieThompson was a spoof called “The Scarlotti Comics Group,” whereinI invented a Cleveland-based short-lived publisher of the 1950s andincluded a price guide to his handful of titles. It made Don laughand that was all it took to make the sale. I always wanted to doa series of one-shot “reprints” of those Scarlotti comics, but I’mpretty sure they would be a hard sell in the current marketplace.If/when I come across the original manuscript for this parody, I’ll run it in the bloggy thing and maybe, just maybe, I can sweet-talksome artists into drawing some covers for it.

At one point, I was writing multiple features for CBG. Every fewweeks, I would write “I Cover the Newsstand” in which I would takenote of comics stuff in non-comics magazines. This is back when Iowned and operated a comics shop and newsstand, so I had access todozens of magazines every week.

The intros to “I Cover the Newsstand” were written in hard-boileddetective style and, though I haven’t reread any of these columnsin decades, I remember enjoying writing them. They seemed popularwith CBG’s readers and that once paid off for me in an unexpectedway. Here’s the story...

It was early morning, around 5 am, and I was driving from our homein Fairlawn to my Cosmic Comics store in downtown Cleveland. I wasspeeding - my bad - and got pulled over by a police officer. Sheasked for my driver’s license. I handed it to her. She looked atit, smiled and asked “Do you cover the newsstand?”

She was a CBG subscriber. She let me off with a warning. Writingfor the newspaper did have its perks every now and then.

Under the name “Brad Silver,” I also wrote “Book Talk.” This wasa filler giving information on upcoming paperbacks and hardcoversthat might be of interest to our readers. I could write a month’sworth of “Book Talk” in a couple of hours. As short as they were,they beefed up my monthly check nicely.

Charmed by an ancient comic strip called The Outbursts of EverettTrue by A.D. Condo and J.W. Raper (1905-1927) and which featured aquick-to-anger grouch, I wrote a comic book-centric version of thetwo-panel strip and talked Cleveland artist Gary Dumm, best knownfor his work with Harvey Pekar, to draw it. I figured it would bea one-shot, but Don and Maggie talked me into writing more of these“New Outbursts of Everett True.” I ended up doing hundreds of themfor CBG and Movie Collectors World, also edited by the Thompsons.

When I closed Cosmic Comics and went back to writing full-time, Idropped out of CBG for a time. But I couldn’t stay away from twoof the best editors in comics for long.

I started writing “Tony’s Tips,” which originally reviewed comics-related stuff. Reviewing actual comic books was Don’s territory,but, eventually, I started reviewing them as well. I learned a lotfrom Don’s reviews, but never tried to duplicate his style. He wasthe king of the CBG reviews. I was an enthusiastic cheerleader andsometimes raucous court jester.

I wrote almost 800 “Tony’s Tips” columns for CBG. Sometimes I wentfar afield of comic books per se and wrote about real-world stuffthat was important to me. When the local branch of the ChristianCoalition, who I called the “Vicious Coalition,” tried to mess withour award-winning library, I joined the battle. I wrote somewherebetween six and a dozen columns detailing the fight for freedom inmy hometown.

CBG readers loved them. Librarians all around the country startedsending me fan mail. The VC threatened to sue me and, anonymously,made threats of a more physical nature.

The Medina Library would win an American Library Association awardas the best library of its size. A levy for the library, which wasbitterly opposed by the VC, passed by a landslide. Ultimately, thedefeat broke the back of the local Christian Coalition. They havenever been a force in the community since.

I cherish many things about my “Tony’s Tips” columns, but I’m goingto limit myself to the big six...

I was able to entertain and inform tens of thousands of readers inthose columns. It would be impossible to tabulate how many readershave told me how a recommendation from me led them to comics andbooks that are now among their all-time favorites. Just as when Iowned a comic-book shop, I love bringing together comics fans andgreat comics.

I was able to draw attention to some incredibly talented creatorsearly in their careers. When I got into comics, many of those whocame before me were generous with their knowledge and time. Thatmeant a lot to me and it meant - and still means - a lot to be ableto pay it forward.

I was able to promote quality works that might otherwise have beenoverlooked in the comics marketplace. I was far from the only CBGcontributor doing this, but I cherish the notes of thanks I oftengot from creators, editors and publishers.

CBG gave me a “comics home” for decades. Writing for the magazinekept me visible and working through times when it was virtually myonly connection to the industry. This didn’t please everyone, but,fortunately, most of our readers and industry peers were happy toinvite me into their “homes” every week/month.

Without my CBG connection, it’s unlikely I would have written 1000Comic Books You Must Read. I’m very proud of that fun little rompthrough the history of the American comic book and grateful for theover-and-above guidance and support I got from Maggie Thompson andBrent Frankenhoff in bringing it to press.

Finally, and this is the biggest of the big six, I am so lucky tohave made so many great friends through my writing for CBG. Somehave grown up and grown old with me...and I cherish each and everyone of them.

So...what next?

“Tony Isabella’s Bloggy Thing” will continue to appear on its nigh-daily basis. I did consider changing the name to “Tony’s Tips” forabout half an hour, but decided against it. The bloggy thing hasits own identity and, despite the frequent nostalgic looks at thepast, I’m looking forward, ever forward.

I do plan to write more reviews for this bloggy thing of mine...andgive priority to review items sent to me by creators, editors andpublishers. As always, those creators, editors and publishers aremore than welcome to use my reviews of their comics and other itemsto promote them.

Review items can be sent to me at: Tony Isabella, 840 Damon Drive,Medina OH 44256. If you need to get in touch with me for whateverreason, you can e-mail me and I’ll respond to your message as soonas possible.

I’m going to miss CBG. It was a blessing to comicdom and to me aswell...and it will always be a part of me.

My first subscription to CBG started at the age of 11. I saw an ad for the (then) newspaper in many of the several comics that I read on a monthly basis. After some begging of my parents, they agreed to buy a subscription for me.

I literally, at times, looked more forward to reading CBG than the comics it covered.

I frequently visited the website over the years. I do wish that they had found a way to make the publication viable on line. I would have subscribed to that.

I started subscribing to TBG in '77. Back in those days I had a short lived dream of writing and drawing comics, and TBG printed a short review of the very first story I ever had published. I lost that copy over the years and many moves, but I subscribed to TBG and CBG on and off for the next 30 years or so, long after I stopped reading comics. Even though I hadn't read CBG in years, the news of its demise was something like hearing that a long lost favorite Uncle that you'd lost track of had just died. Even though I stopped reading it, I'll miss knowing that it's not there any more.

I too had to beg my parents to get a subscription in 1977.After a bunch of extra chores my Dad wrote the check and boy oh boy did I get happy when a new issue arrived,it really was like discovering a whole new world.I ordered the Bud Plant catalog and LOVED the sexy girl on the cover,I was a bit nervous my Mom would think it was too risque!

I too have many good memories of growing up w/ CBG ( meeting so many folks during the years I was publishing mini comic books being one of my best ones )and I'll never forget the shock of getting the news that Don Thompson had passed.I remember how that day smelled and that I cried.It was like losing a great,wise Uncle.I know that Don shaped me as much as The Beatles and that much of whatever is good in me is thanx at least in part to Don and Maggie Thompson.

I've written before how I was introduced to the old TBG, by a girl I was dating at the time. From those early issues from Alan Light through the past years under Krause, CBG was my major (and sometimes only) connection to comics and comics fandom. An ad in one issue got me to join my first APA and another got me involved in a trade with a British fan of THE PHANTOM which introduced me to 2000A.D. & Judge Dredd.

Over the decades other, sometimes flashier, magazines came along to compete with CBG, but almost none of them survived. The Comics Journal, as far as I know, is the only one to continue as a print publication to this day.

I'm certainly going to miss opening my mailbox and finding that next issue of CBG waiting for me.

I was introduced to CBG when my brother got his first subscription in the 80's. I eventually got one of my own, and when CBG shifted from a newspaper format, which was the best ever, to a slick magazine for no other reason than to compete with----and eventually vanquish---Wizard, I was actually able to find it at the local newsstand. One last subscription a few years back, before I retired from collecting pro tempore.

It's just sad to read that CBG is gone. F & W had also done away with another mag I was buying, Tuff Stuff, for sports cards fans, a few years back. One wonders if the business decisions are being made too soon......

I also subscribed for many years, starting in the late '80s and continuing through the mid-'90s. I drifted away when the publication went monthly and as the role that CBG played in informing me of new comics was taken over by the Internet. Like others here, I loved when that gigantic pile of newsprint showed up in my mailbox, and I would pore over the contents again and again until the following week, when I could start fresh with a new edition. Happy memories.

I will miss the Comic Buyers Guide. I was wondering if there will be a Tony's Tips book or Best of Tony's Tips. I bought CBG for your column and always went to the CBG web site to comment on news items. It's too bad they couldn't continue publication on the web only. Many magazines are going this route and I was hoping there would be a last minute appeal. Are there any comic or web publications that discuss the Silver age and all the other ages like CBG did?

I am going to miss CBG a lot. It's like a part of my life is gone because I commented a lot on your site. Not only that but I always came to read the reviews and see covers of old comic issues. It will be missed .................

I am fairly sure the company heads were not conscious of the issue number at all. Most of the magazines in the company weren't known by issue numbers, but cover dates. CBG was an exception in Iola, but I don't know what they would have known in the head office. In any event, ending when they did was almost certainly intended to close things out at the end of a budget year.

I've written at length on my Comichron site about the magazine, but I wanted to thank you here, Tony, for the time and energy you put in. I know it made a difference to all of us.

I was a regular subscriber to the Comics Buyer's Guide since the middle of the 1980's, and yes I read your column regularly along with Peter David's, and the letters pages. Over the years I watched the Buyer's Guide go from weekly newspaper to monthly magazine and participated regularly by writing letters to the Oh, So? letters column. I lost count over how many letters I wrote that got published, but they became quite numerous as the years progressed.

When the Forums debuted online I signed up and became a regular contributor under the name "Phatok". Many people read my amateur movie reviews and one post I wrote about comics and Rock N Roll songs got such a big response that even I was surprised at how many people read it and responded to it.

Your comments echo my feelings in many ways, although I'm looking at it from the perspective of a long time subscriber and reader instead of a long time contributor such as yourself. When the Forums shut down I had a strong suspicion that the end of the magazine wasn't far behind, so while I'm saddened by CBG's demise, I'm not totally shocked.

In fact, I foresee a future not that far off from now when the comic book industry ceases to exist, along with the magazine industry. Paper magazines and comics days are sadly numbered, although comics will still be published, just not in paper form. This is already happening as digital comics are gaining in popularity, and it's only a matter of time before the paper collectibles that we all once cherished become nothing more than a fond memory, and comic book conventions become the stuff of legends of days gone by. It's inevitable as time marches on, and the digital revolution continues.

We already have an entire generation of children who only read and communicate via the digital medium and something which we once took for granted such as writing with a pen on paper is totally foreign to them. Just look at all the people these days that are addicted to their smart phones, and well you get the idea of what I'm talking about. I can't tell you how many people I meet each day at my job (in the retail filed) who can't even write their own name because they don't know how because they've become totally dependent on their smart phones, tablet computer or PC's. This trend is both exciting and scary at the same time.

Well, now that I've found your blog, I'll check it out regularly and I wish you well in whatever future endeavors you pursue.